The NeuroLeadership Institute’s DEI Pulse Survey revealed that organizations are continuing their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives — but they struggle with communication.
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FEATURED INSIGHT
The NeuroLeadership Institute’s DEI Pulse Survey revealed that organizations are continuing their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives — but they struggle with communication.
Read More →
The research has made it clear: Creating a culture of feedback is the most critical driver of positive organizational and financial outcomes.
Leaders typically think of growth mindset in terms of performance, personal growth, career development, and skills improvement. But the concept also can be crucial to driving diversity and inclusion efforts. The key: Whether you believe you are capable of improvement often determines whether you think other people are capable of change. That, in turn, shapes how you view your team as a whole. At the NeuroLeadership Institute, we define growth mindset as the dual belief that skills can be improved over time, and that improving those skills is the goal of the work people do. We recently explored this concept in a white paper featuring growth-mindset case studies from five leading global organizations. What science says Research has found a number of benefits to building a growth mindset culture, specifically around inclusion. For instance, growth mindset can reduce stereotyping. Researchers have found that whether or not you think people are fixed or mutable in who they are shapes how many stereotypical judgments people make. If you use a growth mindset, you are more likely to attribute stereotype traits to environmental forces, rather than inborn traits. When making judgments, a growth mindset also helps people gather more information before coming to conclusions. In one study, those with a fixed mindset needed less context before making a decision, potentially leading to undesired or unforeseen outcomes. Growth mindset doesn’t just help people doing the stereotyping; it also helps people on the receiving end. Consider the idea of “stereotype threat.” It’s when members of a certain group do poorly on a task because they’re told they’re not “supposed” to excel. A body of research has shown that growth mindset can reduce the effects of stereotype threat, enabling people to perform closer to their true potential. The business case For organizations, the implication here is that cultivating a growth mindset culture can help drive down biased behavior and create stronger teams. Leaders who help their employees see failures as learning opportunities, and threats as new and exciting challenges, can also help those employees see others’ shortcomings not as signs of personal failings, but merely as a product of being human. When employees start accepting diverse team members as generally well-intentioned, though perhaps fallible, they can move from a culture of competition to one of true and inclusive collaboration. This article is the twelfth and final installment in NLI’s series, Growth Mindset: The Master Class, a 12-week campaign to help leaders see how the world’s largest organizations are putting growth mindset to use. [action hash=”cd97f93c-1daf-4547-8f7c-44b6f2a77b77″]
The beloved author H.P. Lovecraft has been famously quoted as saying that “the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” Lovecraft was no neuroscientist or business expert, but in this era of constant change, his sentiment rings true. Organizations face technological advances like never before, creating an ever-growing gap between existing and required skills. At NLI, we believe even the most fearful leader can take solace in the science of perspective-taking, insight, and effective execution, in order to lead a transformation in their organization. Here are three brain-based strategies all leaders can employ. [action hash=”1c967ecd-f614-4b3d-a6f1-a14c6ec523bc”] 1) Use SCARF® to practice perspective-taking Taking others’ perspectives offers many benefits, including seeing new possibilities with clients, colleagues, and even competitors. Perspective-taking facilitates social understanding and increases willingness to engage with others, build relationships, increases perceived leadership capability, and decreases stereotyping. Perspective-taking hinges on three processes: understanding that others possess mental states, realizing those mental states are not identical to our own, and overcoming the self-focused bias of our own perspective. Leaders can use the SCARF® Model — a way of grouping five domains of social threat and reward — to facilitate understanding of others’ motivation and social behavior. Specifically, they should explicitly ask for others’ perspectives, consciously take the perspective of those they seek to understand, and purposefully set aside time to practice. 2) Accelerate breakthroughs by creating the conditions for insight Innovation requires creative thinking, which neuroscience research suggests often derives from moments of insight. Research also shows that there is a reliable series of events that precede emergence of an insight — meaning that it’s not random; it follows a process. Threat and noise reduce the likelihood of insight generation, while a positive mood and relaxed state increase the chance of insight. Leaders can approach team processes with insight in mind by noticing when people tend to have the deepest insights and creating those conditions in daily processes. For example, leaving mornings — when people tend to have the most insights — free for private, quiet work. And allow people to have a few quiet minutes to reflect during a meeting rather than all working aloud. 3) Create extreme clarity for faster execution Uncertainty creates threat, flatlines creativity, impairs decision making, and ultimately diminishes productivity. When people feel threatened, their instinct is to be as careful as possible, often to the point of excess. For instance, role uncertainty breeds indecision and a pathological need for consensus to ensure that everyone is in agreement, which impedes swift progress. To mitigate threat and promote efficiency, leaders should create extreme clarity and set clear expectations in the areas that matter most. These include roles, process, and determining what “good” looks like. Creating extreme clarity in all five SCARFⓇ domains generates a sense of perceived control, which is fundamentally rewarding. Individuals and teams are more motivated to work together and accomplish goals with alacrity through transformation. Indeed, approaching transformation with the right strategies is like folding a paper airplane. Done right, you can make that flat piece of paper soar. [action hash=”1c967ecd-f614-4b3d-a6f1-a14c6ec523bc”]
Across all of our industry research into growth mindset, one question keeps popping up for leaders: If we’re so focused on growth, can we still focus on results? We’ve heard the concern voiced in a number of different ways in discussions with organizations putting growth mindset to use, which we’ve featured in our latest white paper, “Impact Report: Growth Mindset Supports Organizations Through Disruption.” The paper showcases how firms make growth mindset come to life and drive lasting change. In short, the answer is yes. How to measure progress and results We define growth mindset as the belief that skills can be improved with persistent effort; they are not set in stone, or fixed. A Growth Mindset Culture is one where most, if not all, employees demonstrate that attitude in their shared everyday habits. They embrace failure. They take risks. They learn to get better. Fortunately, growth mindset makes room for an emphasis on learning and checking progress over time, because it’s not about comparing two different employees or teams to one another; it’s about comparing one employee or team to themselves. One way to do all that and still ensure you’re moving in the right direction is to perform a bit of mental contrasting. The technique involves holding in your mind’s eye the memories of the past or the vision of the desired future, and contrasting them with the present reality. When leaders contrast where they are to where they were, or where they’d like to go, they can evaluate the fruits of their growth mindset. They can ask themselves questions such as, How much have we grown? Are we growing in the right ways? What else still needs attention? In fact, it’s crucial that leaders encourage their teams to focus on results and learnings, since growth requires two endpoints. A team may never hit certain ideals, but by measuring achievement against specific objectives, leaders can know the growth mindset is working. In other words, growth mindset isn’t important just for its own sake. At some point, everyone still needs to stop and see how far they’ve come. This article is the tenth installment in NLI’s series, Growth Mindset: The Master Class, a 12-week campaign to help leaders see how the world’s largest organizations are putting growth mindset to use. [action hash=”cd97f93c-1daf-4547-8f7c-44b6f2a77b77″]
When collecting data on learning sessions, the net promoter score is the default for many organizations. But there are numerous flaws with the approach.
Leaders are constantly wondering how to create or strengthen their culture. So as part of its ongoing NLI Guide series, the NeuroLeadership Institute has released its latest white paper, “How Culture Change Really Happens.” In simple, everyday language, the guide makes a compelling case that leaders should be pursuing two lower-level objectives in order to produce — and sustain — culture change. Without both elements, teams may start working more efficiently, but the behavior is bound to subside. NLI’s approach to culture change starts with growth mindset. Leaders must help their employees understand that mistakes happen, and that failure is inevitable. What matters is whether people see those setbacks as reasons to give up, or to persist. Once people start embracing challenges as opportunities, rather than as threats, NLI believes the next step is PHS: priorities, habits, and systems. Leaders often make the mistake of thinking awareness of a goal is enough motivation to achieve it. But willpower is fleeting, so it’s important to create the habits that support a change, and the systems that reinforce those habits. We define culture as shared everyday habits. With a growth mindset and a focus on priorities, habits, and systems, leaders should have no trouble building the desired shared everyday habits in their own organization. [action hash=”1c967ecd-f614-4b3d-a6f1-a14c6ec523bc”]
By now, most leaders understand that organizational growth mindset is a transformative tool for talent development. The belief that others can develop their abilities — and the ability to help them do so — are powerful ways to help employees become more resilient, more nimble, and more innovative. But actually putting all that into practice within an organization is more difficult than it sounds. As we recently learned in our industry research project — an endeavor we captured in a new white paper, “Growth Mindset Culture” — leaders are finding that two main obstacles keep getting in the way. Here’s what they’re about and how to address them. Obstacle #1: An imperfect understanding of growth mindset When it comes to cultivating growth mindset within an organization, it’s not enough for leaders to simply tell employees to have a growth mindset. Nor should leaders simply declare that they themselves have a growth mindset when the reality is that many leaders don’t fully understand it. For leaders to really embody growth mindset, they need to ask themselves: Do they truly believe in their own need to grow, and not just that of their employees? The best way to promote growth mindset throughout an organization, we’ve found, is for leaders to embody growth mindset themselves. Our research showed that leadership buy-in was critical for the success of growth-mindset initiatives. To assess their own understanding, leaders should ask themselves three questions: Do I believe that everyone in their organization has the capacity to grow? Do I believe there’s talent everywhere in the organization — talent that should be fostered and acknowledged as it emerges? Am I open about my own mistakes, and the lessons I draw from those mistakes? Only when leaders understand these principles fully, deeply, and accurately can they truly serve as models of growth mindset for their employees. Obstacle #2: Policies that don’t reflect a true commitment to growth Once leaders begin to master the principles of growth mindset, they can turn their attention to disseminating it throughout the organization. But fostering a culture of growth mindset requires more than just sending out a few emails or running a training workshop. It also means revising practices, policies, and systems throughout the organization to make sure they value not just performance, but learning, growth, and progress over time. Unfortunately, many organizations that claim to value growth mindset treat their employees in a way that doesn’t value their growth — for instance, firing an employee who makes a mistake rather than treating it as an opportunity to learn and grow. When this happens, it signals that the organization may be overvaluing performance relative to growth. The key to creating a supportive environment is communication. Employees and managers should speak frequently in a constructive evaluation process. They should discuss what they’re really happy with, what can still be improved, and how to collaborate on getting there. Ultimately, organizations that truly care about employees’ growth and development know that making mistakes is inevitable — and they foster an environment where mistakes are seen not as indictments of worth or ability, but as opportunities for growth and improvement. This article is the ninth installment in NLI’s new series, Growth Mindset: The Master Class, a 12-week campaign to help leaders see how the world’s largest organizations are putting growth mindset to use.
The key to addressing toxic behavior might be the third person in the room. A new study of more than 6,000 college students suggests a major way to reduce toxic behavior is through bystander training — that is, equipping people who witness instances of assault, or possible warning signs, to quickly intervene. People who underwent training intended to act and actually did more much often than those who weren’t trained. The finding bolsters what the NeuroLeadership Institute has found with respect to “employee voice,” or the extent to which employees feel empowered to make constructive, challenging upward communication like calling out harassment or other toxic behaviors. Multiplied across an entire organization, cultures of speaking up may hold the power stamp out toxic behavior, creating a cultural impact that goes beyond compliance training. Bystanders play a crucial role Good-faith arguments that recipients of toxic behavior should speak up themselves make sense in theory, but for many who experience assault, bullying, or harassment firsthand, the pain and confusion is much too paralyzing. In turn, negative feelings get internalized, and toxic behaviors may go unchecked. The new study, led by Clemson University sociologist Heather Hensman Kettrey and published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, suggests an alternate path toward safer and healthier work environments. Kettrey found that training programs designed to encourage witnesses of sexual assault or predatory behavior to intervene had a meaningful effect on bystander behavior. Program participants both intended to take more action and did take more action in the months following the training — two times more often, on average — than students who hadn’t gotten trained. “These findings are especially important considering that research indicates that traditional sexual assault programs, which target the behavior of potential victims or of potential perpetrators, are not particularly effective at preventing assault,” Kettrey writes in The Conversation. “Thus, the power to prevent sexual assault may lie in the hands of bystanders.” The importance of focusing on culture When lower-status people feel targeted by higher-status people, fears of retribution or other social threats prevent them from speaking up. Bystanders don’t necessarily fit into the same power dynamic, enabling them to act as neutral advocates on behalf of the lower-status employee. It’s in leaders’ interest, in other words, to create better bystanders and cultivate a culture of speaking up. To do this, leaders need to instill the right day-to-day habits across their organizations. For instance, they can create clear if-then plans to give employees a sense of certainty if an ambiguous situation may arise. Rather than sit idly by, worrying if they’ll get punished for speaking out, a bystander can turn to the if-then plan everyone agreed upon. This kind of intervention is different from the norm because it goes beyond compliance. It gives leaders behavioral tools to enable all employees to speak up early and often. In cultures of speaking up, employees value consequences. Bad actors can’t slip under the radar because warning signs get reported long before they reach a boiling point. “We, as a society, should strive to become better bystanders by noticing the warning signs of a potential assault, knowing strategies to intervene, and remembering that we have a collective responsibility to prevent sexual assault,” Kettrey writes. The same is true in the workplace. Teams composed of better bystanders create a common good in the larger culture, which enables everyone to feel free and safe to get their best work done.
Just because leaders have made growth a near universal priority, doesn’t mean that they necessarily know how to implement growth mindset. New data from the NeuroLeadership Institute makes that gap clearer than ever. Results from a recent survey* showed a whopping 48% of people, when asked about the top obstacle for kickstarting growth mindset in their organizations, said it was the uncertainty of how to put growth mindset into action. Interpreting the data To us, this result indicates that leaders still feel they lack the tools to build a “growth mindset culture,” or one in which employees embrace failure and see challenges as opportunities, not threats. It also suggests that people feel uncertain about the business case for growth mindset in organizations. Alternatively, they may feel unsure how to get others to care about its potential relevance to performance. All these doubts may accompany the ever-present misunderstandings and old myths around what growth mindset is and is not. Equally telling, our survey showed that 25% of respondents felt existing systems discourage growth mindset from taking shape. This highlighted for us the importance of creating work and talent processes in a way that support, not oppose, a growth-mindset approach. For example, if your talent management approach worships innate talent and drives a highly competitive environment, employees may try to nip growth mindset initiatives in the bud fairly quickly. Where to look for growth mindset The good news is that just 16% of respondents said their senior leaders simply didn’t see the value in growth mindset. Any talent practitioner who ever had to convince top leaders of the need for talent development initiatives know that this is rare. Getting full executive buy in can difficult, and maintaining it even more so. We assume that high-profile leaders such as Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO and avid growth mindset supporter, lead the way by valuing the science behind growth mindset as a performance and engagement driver. To help leaders grasp the science and current application of growth mindset and equip them to make shifts in their own organizations, we captured more such findings from our industry research in our recent Idea Report, “Growth Mindset Culture,” as well as in NLI’s 12-week blog series “Growth Mindset: The Master Class.” Check out either to better understand how growth mindset advocates are make it work in their organizations.
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In 2007, David and Lisa Rock and their team had been working in leadership development and executive coaching for ten years, when David coined the term “NeuroLeadership.”ef
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